Lorne Michaels forbade SNL Chris Farley to help him pick up drugs
Chris Farley is generally considered one of the most iconic “Saturday night live” cast members of all time, but “SNL” maker Lorne Michaels would not always allow him on the set of the productive Late-Night Sketch Show.
During a recent performance on Dax Shepard’s’Armchair expert“Podcast (via Entertainment weekly), Susan Morrison, the author of “Lorne: The Man Who Saturday Night Live”, said Michaels removed the alcohol and drug use from the cast after John Belushi died of an overdose in 1982.
“When Belushi died, it really hit him,” Morrison explained. “And I think he felt like this whole approach to just let people do their own thing on their own time, this was the wrong approach. We are a tribe, we are a group and we have to pay attention to each other.”
This approach extended to Farley, who, according to Morrison, had “clear addiction issues”. Michaels is said to “call him in his office” and help him act “drinking or drugs”.
Morrison added that after a conversation with Bob Odenkirk, who wrote “SNL” from 1987 to 1991, she heard that Farley was often enthusiastic to be called to Michaels’ office, although the conversations were never easy.
“It was like the sort of sensation of being in the office of the director, but at the same time you get into trouble,” she remembered. “He couldn’t metabolize it, but Lorne had really changed his approach. He would forbid Farley from the show for weeks in a row if he was too messed up. And he sent him to a series of really cool love rehabilitation places. And of course it didn’t work for him.”
“Once he had become clean and recurrent, he was suspended by Michaels, who sent him to a rehabilitation of a tough love in Alabama,” she added. “Michaels knew that the show was what Farley liked best, so he hoped to take him away, would make an impression.”
On December 18, 1997, Farley died of an overdose of a mixture of cocaine and heroin, the same cocktail of drugs that killed Belushi 15 years earlier. The “Tommy Boy” star died only two months after he returned to host “Saturday night live”.
